Publications

Research objectives: The goal of the article is a comparative analysis of information recorded by John of Plano Carpini on Mongolian and Mongol Empire law, along with other sources on the Mongolian law and legal traditions aimed at determining the objectivity of diplomat’s materials and observing the evolution of traditional law of the Mongols. Research materials: Verification is carried out on the basis of the work “The Story of the Mongols Whom We Call the Tartars” by John of Plano Carpini, making comparisons with the corpus of other historical sources, including travelers’ notes and historical chronicles by authors of the medieval and modern eras, as well as materials of ethnographic research on the legal traditions of nomadic peoples of Eurasia. The novelty of the study: The presented article is the first attempt to compare the information of John of Plano Carpini on the customary and imperial law of the Mongols with other sources on Mongolian law to observe certain legal traditions of the Mongols and the evolution of law among the Eurasian nomads. Research results: The author has found that the majority of information from John of Plano Carpini on Mongolian law in the middle of thirteenth century can be characterized as objective as it is confirmed by the data from independent sources dating from the thirteenth to nineteenth centuries. These include testimonies of other foreign travelers who visited Mongolia in different epochs, medieval historical chronicles, studies resulting from ethnographic research, etc. Besides that, the value of the information of the diplomat is emphasized within the context of comparative legal research on the history of the state and law of the Mongol Empire and Chinggisid states.

Introduction. The article examines a yarliq from Dastur al-Katib (14th c. CE) and attempts to an insight into the principles of using the Mongol language in the 13th–14th century Persian records management system. Goals. The study provides an interdisciplinary analysis of the historical monument — a yarliq appointing a bakhshi (senior scribe) included in Dastur al-Katib fi Tayin al-Maratib (A Scribe’s Guide to Determining Ranks) compiled in the mid-14th century by Muhammad ibn Hindushah Nakhchivani, a financial statesman under the late Hulaguids and early Jalairids. To facilitate this, the paper shall: 1) translate the examined document into Russian, 2) characterize the latter as a valuable source on history of state, law and chancellery culture of Mongol Iran, 3) analyze the yarliq as an official act and a source of law, 4) identify the legal status of the Mongolian language in 13th–14th century Iran. Materials and methods. The study explores the yarliq proper and other materials of Dastur al-Katib, additional medieval sources on Mongol Iran and Genghisid states, including works by Rashid al-Din, Wassaf, etc., official documents of Genghisid chancelleries. The work employs a series of historical and legal research methods, such as those of source criticism, diplomatics analysis, comparative historical research, formal legal approach, historical legal and comparative legal analyses. Results. The paper introduces the yarliq appointing a secretary (bakhshi) from the medieval Persian treatise titled Dastur al-Katib into Russian-language scientific discourse and supplements it with a detailed interdisciplinary analysis. The work clarifies specific features of a bakhshi’s legal status as a senior scribe responsible for translating official edicts from Persian into Mongolian, his functions, rights, requirements for candidates. An attempt to identify the person to have been appointed scribe therein was made. Conclusions. The works concludes Mongolian had a status of the official language in records management system of Iran throughout the late 13th and 14th centuries, the former having been extensively used by nomadizing subjects of Hulaguid and Jalairid Ilkhans, including top-rank executives of Mongolian descent. This was reflected in the appointment of a special official responsible for articulating legal and other documents into Mongolian for nomadic elites and warlords. However, to extrapolate this conclusion onto other Genghisid states it is necessary to compare the researched document and additional information on Mongol Iran with similar sources from other heirs of the Mongol Empire, such as the Golden Horde, Chagatai Ulus, etc.

The article examines the issue of the place of smart contracts in the legal systematization. The main difference between a smart contract and traditional civil law contracts is seen in the fact that its conclusion occurs in electronic form within information system, while its essential terms determine the automatic transfer of property rights. Despite the fact that the terms of the smart contract must include commands and data necessary for its automatic execution, the language of the applicable law should be the primary language of the smart contract. The contract cannot be self-executing, it’s an illusion. For the conclusion and execution of smart contracts it is necessary not only to express the mutual will of its parties, but also the participation of the operator of the information system, as well as the existence of the rules of the information system. In a decentralized system the operator's functions are performed by the users of the system, united in the civil law community. As a general rule, software manufacturers should bear property liability for poor-quality work of software products used in the conclusion and execution of automatically executed contracts.

The article is an analysis of judicial activity of Chinggis Khan towards persons who entered his service under different circumstances. Analysis allows to state that Chinggis Khan not always used the same criteria taking his decision on the reward for loyalty and punishment for treachery. Authors attempt to explain the reasons of taking one or another decision by Chinggis Khan and clarify their correlation with political ideology formed by him during the establishing of the Mongol Empire. Besides, it seems that the analysis of specific cases could help trace the process of forming the system of khan’s court which foundation was laid by Chinggis Khan just during the period of the unification of Mongol tribes at the initial stage of creating of his empire. The source base for the research includes medieval historical works: “Secret history of Mongols”, “Sheng-wu qin-cheng-lu”, Compendium of chronicles” by Rashid ad-Din, “Yuan shih”, “Altan Tobchi” by Lubsan Danzan and some others. Positions of different scholars on decisions of Chinggis Khan are also taken into account.

The Author demonstrates the practical applicability of O. Bulow’s concept of the autonomy of procedural law relations. Such idea can be useful to ground the inadmissibility of challenging by one person, participating in a dispute, a ruling on return of an appellation (cassation) complaint of an another person; as well as to ground the inadmissibility of one party to the dispute pleading for not allowing the representative of another party to participate in court seatings.

This article is devoted to the questions to the notions “digital economy,” “digital rights”, “digital financial asset”, “utilitarian digital right”

It provides the reader on the view’s resident in economic and legal doctrines as to the notions of “digital asset,” “digital rights”, “digital financial asset”, “utilitarian digital right.”

 The purpose of this article is to investigate the legal nature and legal regime of the digital rights and also the terms of their turnover.

It should be stressed that the digital rights are mainly investment tools, which can be used by various entities. As a result, the legislator tries to ensure a balance of interests between the recipients of investments and investors, as well as to protect unsophisticated investors from possible risks. In this regard, a system of norms has been formed that establishes the legal status of professional participants in the digital market (the operator of an information system, the operator of the exchange of digital financial assets, the operator of an investment platform, etc.), whose powers and responsibilities are similar in some of their functions to the activities of professional participants in the securities market.

According to the Environmental Doctrine of the Russian Federation, the «polluter pays principle» is one of the main economic mechanisms that ensure sustainable use of natural resources in market conditions. Oficially it is enshrined in paragraph seven of Article 3 of the Federal Law of January 10, 2002 No. 7-FZ «On Environmental Protection» (hereinafter referred to as the Law on Environmental Protection) under the name of the principle of paid nature use and compensation for environmental damage, and its content was disclosed by the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, who noted that this principle «is expressed in the mandatory financing by legal entities and individual entrepreneurs engaged in economic and (or) other activities that lead or may lead to environmental pollution, measures to prevent and (or) reduce the negative impact on the environment elimination of the consequences of this impact» (Decree of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation dated 02.06.2015 No. 12-P).

The article examines the social and other guarantees that are provided to the highest official of the subject of the Russian Federation after his resignation. The purpose of the article is to describe these guarantees. To achieve this goal, regulatory legal acts containing provisions on the conditions for granting and terminating social and other guarantees were analyzed. The empirical basis of the study was the normative legal acts of the predominantly regional level. These acts contain a detailed list of guarantees of the governor in retirement. Material from the mass media was used to illustrate these guarantees. The article discusses the conditions for providing guarantees to governors after their resignation. It is noted that federal regulation of these conditions is scarce, while regional legislation significantly expands and clarifies the conditions for providing social guarantees. Depending on which regulatory legal act establishes the social guarantees of the retired governor, all acts were classified into seven groups. In the first case, social guarantees are fixed in a special law on the highest official of the subject of the Russian Federation. In the second case, they were established in the laws of the subjects of the Russian Federation on public positions. The third group is formed by the laws of the subjects of the Russian Federation on the government or on the system of executive authorities. The fourth group includes laws of the subjects of the Russian Federation devoted exclusively to the guarantees of the highest official of the subject of the Russian Federation. The remaining three groups include one unique act (the Law on the People's Governor of the Kemerovo Region, the Law on the State Adviser of the Republic of Tatarstan, the Decree of the Head of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic «On guarantees to the President of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic»). Among the normative legal acts that establish guarantees for retired governors, depending on the time of their adoption, two groups of acts were distinguished: «acts of gratitude to another» and «acts of gratitude to oneself». The content of each guarantee is analyzed. The study identified the following guarantees to the former Governor: lump sum remuneration, the payment of the monthly lifetime allowance, the provision of medical treatment, Spa care, protection, special communications, accommodation, transport, insurance, staff, office space, Advisory vote, the compensation of the costs of relocation and funeral, legal protection, participation in ceremonial events, guarantees, related to the interaction with bodies of state power of subject of the Russian Federation, creating a position with a special status. It is concluded that further federal regulation of these relations is impractical, since regional state authorities, together with the population of a particular subject of the Russian Federation, must independently regulate these relations.

The building of the Soviet state began with the construction of new legal norms in the field of copyright: it abolished the inheritance of copyright, the state could nationalize any works. However, discussion accompanied the introduction of these norms in the ruling circles. In December 1917, there were still proposals to save the inheritance of copyright by reducing the term of their protection. Decrees 1917–1918 allowed the nationalization of works and eliminated the inheritance of copyright as well. After the author’s death, the work became a public domain. The nationalization of works pursued several tasks: first, the expansion and revitalization of publishing; secondly, the reduction in the cost of printed products; third, improvement of the cultural level of Soviet citizens. Soviet literature emphasized that the first decrees on copyright contributed to the release of authors who fell into material dependence on publishing houses. The state regulated the amount of minimum remuneration for the author. Contracts for which the exclusive rights to the publisher passed for an unlimited period, were recognized invalid. At the same time, in practice, there were also negative implications. The monopolization of the publication of works of Russian classical literature, notes and archives, textbooks deprived private publishing houses of a large number of orders, that led to their closure. The seizure of the rights to individual works by the state actually destroyed the author’s exclusive right to his creation: the author could not use his own result of intellectual activity at his own discretion. The construction of free use of the result of intellectual activity with the obligatory payment of the approved remuneration to the state replaced the exclusive right after the death of the author. The rights to works that were not subject to nationalization could be freely expropriated subject to certain conventions, that is, with respect to them, the author retained the exclusive right. By monopolizing works endowed with cultural value, the state set for them an obligatory ideological criterion: educational and agitational character. In such regulation of copyright relations you can notice an ambiguous situation. On the one hand, there is a devaluation of the author’s works, a restriction of his rights in relation to his own creation, a diminution of his economic interest. On the other hand, the state has to respond in this way to the urgent need for serious cultural education of workers and peasants, to terminate the already established relations between authors and publishers and to provide authors with minimal guarantees of receiving remuneration.

The article is an analysis of history of the trial of Kazakh sultan Barak executed by four biys (people’s judges) in 1748. This case was not studied in details before, especially by historians of law. Meanwhile, it is a striking example of the crisis of the khans’ justice in the Turkic-Mongol states including the Kazakh Steppe as it was an offence against the principle of exclusive jurisdiction of ruling family over khans and sultans — direct descendants of Chinggis Khan. There is a retrospective historical and legal analysis of trials over members of Chinggisid dynasty in the Turkic-Mongol states. The article clarifies the reasons of gradual decline of khans’ justice system in the Mongol Empire’s and the Golden Horde’s successive states (including Kazakh Khanate and Kazakh zhuzes of 17th–18th centuries). The author analyses the situation in the Kazakh Steppe of the first half of the 18th century which prompted the sultan Barak to appeal to the biys’ court and not khans’ or sultans’ one. The paper also contains the formal legal analysis of this case in biys’ court (its membership, decision and its consequences). Primary sources are historical chronicles of the Medieval and Modern Ages as well as official documents of the Russian Empire which reflect substantial transformations in the political and legal life of the Kazakh Hordes (Zhuzes) in the first half of the 18th century including traditional institutions of power, administration and justice which were succeeded by the Kazakh Khanate from the Golden Horde.

The article analyzes the legal regime of a new investment instrument - a digital certificate, which was introduced into Russian legislation recently. It should be stressed that the appearance of this investment instrument in Russian law is determined by the requirement to introduce digital rights (utilitarian digital rights) to the securities market. The requirement of the introducing digital rights will help to increase the circle of potential investors, because they haven’t to obtain the status of a participant in the investment platform.

The purpose of this article is to investigate insufficiently developed problems related to the legal nature, the legal regime of the digital certificates, also the conditions of their turnover.

Methodological basis of the research consists of general scientific and special methods of cognition, in particular system-structural, formal-legal, formal-logical methods, method of interpretation of law.

In the article, the author notes that the existing legal regulation of relations arising over a digital certificate can hardly be considered satisfactory. In particular, the current legislation contains contradictions and gaps that need to be eliminated. For example, the legislator doesn’t answer to the question of who is the original owner of the digital certificate. As a result of the conducted research, the author of the article came to the conclusion that the digital certificate is a non-emissive, non-documentary, investment security intended for the introduction of such investment instruments as digital rights (utilitarian digital rights) into the securities market.